Blog FeedDepth of Field
Cinematic effects are cool. No two ways about it. Things like motion blur and depth of field can make a game look pretty darn good. That said, there is a time and place for everything, and with all these new graphical toys that developers have to play with these days, I think they need to make sure certain effects aren’t used just for the sake of using them. Bloom was overused in Age of Empires 3. It looked great but I found myself squinting sometimes because of the lack of contrast it caused in certain areas of the map. Realistic? Yes. Helpful? No.
What’s not realistic or helpful though, is the following use of the Depth of Field effect.
It’s from the game ANNO 1701, and a bigger version of the screenshot is right here for closer inspection. Now, not only does this reduce the game’s functionality by restricting where you can be focused on at any one time, it’s also… not actually realistic. In the real world, if I am looking over my town from the air, I don’t need to do anything other than re-focus my eyes to look at things further away. By the looks of this game, you will actually need to scroll over to the area you want to look at if you wish to see it clearly.
I can see the use in having some forced focusing in FPS games - either as part of the storyline (perhaps focusing on a character who is talking to you) or to blur things that are very close to you, such as the foliage you’re hiding behind when you’re sniping someone. But when it comes to strategy games, what is the use of restricting the players view? Their view is their means of control. Can you imagine something like this in Command & Conquer? Supreme Commander? Or even SimCity? It’s a feature I would almost certainly leave turned off.
24th August | Reply
The screen shot you’ve provided really bothers my eyes. Instead of looking at the picture as a whole, my eyes are constantly being drawn to the blurred edges in order to bring them into focus. I knew an art student who would probably call this a “hole” in the picture, that being a particular spot where your eyes are drawn to automatically, as opposed to a well composed picture which your eye is supposed to travel around.
I agree with you that this effect would be an interesting and realistic option to include in a FPS game, as the center of the screen generally counts as your P.O.V. and the mouse moves the camera/head like you would if you were looking around.
It makes absolutely no sense to use an effect like this in any kind of strategy game where the player is given a “God’s Eye View” of the action. The player in these games is supposed to be essentially omniscient of the area of the game viewable on his/her display. Or in the case of games that use the “fog-of-war” the player has knowledge of the collective views of all their units and buildings.
As to finding this feature in games like Command & Conquer or Supreme Commander, it simply wouldn’t make sense. Both games take place at some point in the future, the former much closer to our own time than the latter. Considering the real-world’s army is even now at near 100% operational awareness of the combat zone it is ludicrous to think future armies would be hampered in such a way.
The feature might make sense in a medieval/fantasy setting, but even then its a stretch.
24th August | Reply
Depth of field, although a cool effect, should be restricted to cutscenes. In this screenshot, the DOF makes the town look like a minature model - much like Tilt-shift photography.
28th August | Reply
Depth of Field in and of itself is a cool effect, but I feel that in a lot of cases games would use it to their detriment. as you’ve stated above, RTSs would suck with it, although there would be some interesting applications from a storytelling point of view. Ultimately our wallets will decide the usefulness of this feature, as with just about everything else.